Pioneering Worcester actor takes stage in ‘Uncle Vanya’

For half a century, Ann Marie Shea has been a kind of Lewis and Clark of the stage. As with those intrepid explorers, she has made her own way in challenging the frontiers of the theatre.

“Back in the ’50s, there were few theater arts programs,” she said. Undaunted, Shea undertook an extensive learning odyssey of her own — earning a bachelor’s degree in English at Paxton’s Anna Maria College, a masters in drama at Washington, D.C.’s Catholic University and eventually a doctorate in theater education at New York University. Over the years she has regularly acted, and now she’s in a fresh revival of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” at Chelsea’s Apollinaire Theatre as well as in her own one-woman show, “Madame Secretary Frances Perkins.”

Between her studies, teaching — nearly 40 years at Worcester State University — and numerous productions (including “The Tempest” and “Richard III” at Worcester’s Redfeather Theatre, “My Fair Lady” at Stoneham Theatre and the recent Dan Hunter play “Red Oak” at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Shea has established herself as a veritable triple threat as actress, director and writer. Embracing variety and provocative theater in 50 efforts and four decades of directing at Worcester State, she staged material as different as “The Vagina Monologues,” “The Laramie Project” and “Guys and Dolls.” Always ready to travel for new insight, Shea even studied at England’s Bretton Hall College in Yorkshire. “I went through a summer (1980) in England in pedagogy and theater education,” she said. “It was for getting professional credentials.”

Lately, she has been trekking to the Apollinaire Theatre to work with fellow multiple talent John Kuntz — an Independent Reviewers of New England and Norton Award-winning writer, actor and director — and act in “Uncle Vanya.” Shea, who plays the title character’s mother Maria, has admired Kuntz for many years.

Speaking of his performance as Vanya, she said, “He’s absolutely marvelous.” As for Chekhov, she is equally enthusiastic in her praise. “He really had his thumb on the pulse of his society (Czarist Russia in the late 19th century).” “Chekhov,” she added, “is always writing about people living in useless fantasies.” So it goes, she feels, with her character. “Maria gets lost in these romantic fantasies” — in her case a kind of crush on her pedantic and pompous son-in-law Professor Serebriakov.

Theatergoers could get lost in the sprawling estate of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” As much a character in its own right as the frustrated, fantasy-following family and friends that inhabit the play, the setting boasts “26 huge rooms” as noted by Professor Serebriakov. Apollinaire artistic director Danielle Fauteux Jacques has smartly taken her lead from this observation in deciding to put both the set and the audience in four different locations in her theater for her company’s revival. The result — with a limited group of 30 theatergoers at each performance and two smooth changes of location — is a production that provides audience members with a rich feel for the experiences of the characters as well as the size of the estate. Designer Nathan Lee has done yeoman work with the contrasting sets — including a well-detailed library and a swing-enhanced exterior among others — and scenic painting.

A strong cast has done equally well painting the conflicting emotions of their characters. John Kuntz has all of the relative mood swings of Vanya — his rage as estate manager for self-centered Serebriakov and his strong attraction to Elena, the professor’s beautiful second wife Elena (the deceased first being Vanya’s sister) and his tension with his mother Maria.

Bill Salem captures the professor’s buffoonish and pompous aspects if not all of his meanness. Marissa Rae Roberts catches Elena’s radiance and allure, especially in her eye-catching walk as she enters and walks in the various sets. Ronald Lacey finds doctor Astrov’s fatigue as well as his own fascination with Elena.

Ann Marie Shea makes the most of the brief role of Maria, Vanya’s mother, in the Craig Lucas adaptation chosen for the Apollinaire revival. While the adaptation is generally accessible, the occasional epithets add little to a play already powerful in its examination of largely unfulfilled lives. Still, Danielle Fauteux Jacques has mounted a revival that demonstrates not only Chekhov’s haunting portrait of his times but also the play’s timeliness to an America teeming with similar frustration and unfulfilled dreams.

By contrast, multi-talented Shea continues to fulfill her professional dreams as a writer and actress, both with productions like “Uncle Vanya” and her own “Madame Secretary Frances Perkins.” Perkins, herself a Worcester native, is celebrated as the first woman in a President’s cabinet, serving as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor (1933-45) and later asked to remain by incoming President Harry Truman (1946-47). Shea’s one-hour, one-person play begins as Perkins returns from FDR’s funeral to clean out her desk. Shea spoke of working from 70 sources and even listening to Perkins in recorded lecturing to students at Cornell as she prepared for the part. “We have her voice online,” she said. “She had a higher pitched voice and a very Brahmin kind of accent. It’s a reach.”

Shea’s play focuses on Perkins’ contributions to the historic changes during her tenure to the condition of the American worker- in terms of employment and secure housing and in the establishment of Social Security.